GUEST POST: Arnaud's Take on Coming Back to Europe
Arnaud enjoying the terrace on our new apartment, croissants close at hand. October 3, 2018. Lausanne, Switzerland.
Moving to the US was Great
Growing up in France, the United States was always attractive. It wasn’t just the cool music, movies, and the rest of the culture, it was also that the United States had been the good guys who had helped us during WWII. And the United States epitomized the American dream.
So when Rice accepted me into their Ph.D. program in 1996, I wasn’t the only one happy to accept their offer. It was also Dad, who thought that this was the promise of a better life, one that he’d wished he’d had. And it was my grandmother who had been a farmer in Normandy during WWII. She made me promise to thank every single American I’d meet for what they had done for us.
And, indeed, moving to the United States was liberating. Back in the mid-90s, France seemed in a social and political deadlock. Nothing worked and everyone was on strike. (I know, not much has changed, but it was worse then!)
So I spent a few years in Houston, then went to England, then to Mexico, but, back 2010, I was back in Houston, back at Rice. And during all that time, I’d go to France on vacation, typically for two or three weeks during the summer. At the end of two weeks, the experience was always the same: Yes, it was nice to be in France, but two weeks of French people is enough.
When Leslie and I went there for the first time together a couple of years ago, we spent three weeks in Normandy and Brittany. And at the end of that trip, we looked at each other and it was clear that it wasn’t enough of France. Or Europe.
Over the past twenty years or so, it felt that the fabric of the American society had changed. Or maybe it was me who had changed. The point is that when I looked at it again in 2017, there were no values in the American culture that felt aspirational the way they had in 1996.
So, I started looking for a job, and when I got an offer in Lausanne, we went for it.
Moving Back to Europe is Great
Coming back to Europe has been easy. Having lived in four countries before Switzerland, this isn’t my first experience adapting to a new place and, if we’re frank, the Swiss culture is not exactly that much different from the French one.
Still, the move came with surprises, and I got to realize that Switzerland is far from perfect. In many ways it’s surprisingly, ahem, not progressive. Without getting into much detail, let’s just say that not giving women the right to vote until 1971 is downright shameful, and, to this day, the Swiss society feels surprisingly chauvinistic.
But, even though Switzerland isn’t perfect, it has many attractive sides. From kids taking public transportation alone or walking to schools, to clean and safe streets, to an impressive commitment to recycling (it’s not just recycling, or recycling glass, it’s recycling glass by color), to a social net, to quality public education, to public support for protecting the environment, et cetera.
It feels that, in Switzerland, the public debate has found a good middle ground: It is of higher quality than the dichotomous American approach (“you’re either with us or against us”) without reaching the over complications of the French extremes. Switzerland has its inequalities, but it manages them better than most (judging from their Gini index).
Sure, the food is surprisingly disappointing, but we’re only eight miles away from France (by boat), so a good croissant is never very far. And yes, Lausanne isn’t exactly a world capital of culture and the arts, but it has some and it’s also central—only 3.5 hours away from Paris and Milan and seven hours away from New York. So, Switzerland isn’t paradise, but it’s a pretty good compromise, and, at this time, I can’t think of a place I’d rather Leslie and I to be.